Llama dama ding dong.

I'm freaking out. I just looked in the mirror, and found 4 (count 'em... FOUR) gray hairs. All very close to each other, immediately above my right ear. Thus, the freaking out begins. Those of you who don't know me on a face to face basis may recognize the fact that my forehead has been increasing in size over the past few years. Slowly, but surely. My grandaddy on my moms side had the same problem. His forehead grew all the way across the top of his head eventually, so I'm convinced that mine will do the same.

For the record here, I am 25 years old. TWENTY FIVE!!! With a recedingish hairline and four gray hairs!!!!! I better go out and by some argyle socks and a cane.

Shit shit shit. I already have argyle socks. Is that what did it?? ARE THE SOCKS A CURSE??!?

I think that I am going to buzz off all my hair. Shortlike. Damn hair, who needs it anyway? Maybe I'll dye it before I cut it off. And regularly redye what's left of it.

This, my internet friends, is preposterous. I should write my congressperson. Keep your laws off my body, and my hair on my head.
/rant

Well I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Well, I should edit that. **EDIT** I thought I knew what career path I wanted for my life. **/EDIT** But then, I realized that I did not, in fact, want to be a high school music teacher. I realized that I still wanted to become a high school teacher, but instead I had realized that I wanted to be an English teacher. Then, I realized that I didn't want anything to do with all that high school teaching noise. Not even kind of. I decided though that I did want to pursue music, just performing it. So I started college on that path.

Oops! Wrong again. I enjoy playing music, and I love performing. But I didn't want to perform music as a career. I did, however, want to perform. So I started taking theater classes. I didn't enjoy it. I don't know why, but I just didn't enjoy being in the theater program. I loved acting, truly I did. But I just didn't feel like I was finding my place. At the time, I made the excuse that it was because I didn't want to be a theater actor, but instead a film actor. Piss poor reasoning, in hind sight. But I just really did not like the program and so I left it. Call me a quitter. I don't mind. (But you may find a flaming paper sack on your doorstep if you do. Go ahead, stomp on it to put it out. Fahker.)

Then I went into a state of unknowmanship. I really just had zero ideas. I had toyed with the idea of graphic design in high school, but I never took art classes, so post high school I decided that at the ripe old age of 20 that it was too late to start. I'm a bit silly sometimes. Some call it being pessimistic. I call it being a bit silly. Anyway, time past, and I kept thinking of different career paths. My family had always been in the restaurant business, so I began thinking that's where I would end up. But my mind kept changing. Restaurant management, becoming a chef, getting into sales, getting into real estate, back to thoughts of acting, marketing/advertising, botany/horticulture, and so on. Random paths it seemed. But each had a reason.

So now I'm back where I started again. Indecision. Through it all, I have relied on my love of video games to help me to stop stressing out about real life. Ah video games. I have loved video games since 1986. My friends had the Atari. I thought it was the coolest toy around. Unlike books and movies, you didn't just follow the story of a character, you actually BECAME the character and were then a part of the story. How cool is that? I, of course, HAD to have the Nintendo. Had to, had to, HAD to. And I got it for Christmas. Best. single mom. EVARRR.

And this brings me to my point. Here I am, 22 years and 8 game consoles later, still in love with video games. But can I actually make a career out of this love? I'm sure of it. What I'm not sure of is what I want to do. Graphic design was an idea before, so maybe game art/animation? Game marketing? Programming? Game level design, production, overall design, software engineer... I just can't decide. But one thing that I could decide was that I should get started on a computer sciences degree so I can at least head down the right path, because I'm 25 and not getting younger. Quite the opposite, it seems.

I am obsessed with magazines. Have I mentioned that during this rant? I love 'em. I highly enjoy writing, but I never seem to have anything to write about which I am highly passionate.

Wait a tick. It's all congealing into some sort of semi-coherent mind-fuck of an idea. What if someone paid me to go play video games and then write about it? What if I could go learn of all the latest and greatest video game news and knowledge, then write it down for all to read? What if I could put together some of the things that have been my favorites for a large percent of my life and make a career of it? Shit yeah.

So my big concern is that I may get to a point where I outgrow video games. I can't see that happening, really, but it just might. One thing that I know I'll never outgrow, however, is writing. And if I got into video game journalism and somehow DID grow out of video games one day, I could always take my career to the next step and start writing for a different type of publication.

So is that it? Have I found my niche? Am I finally getting to that magical point in my life where I have figured it out? Please, for the love of all that is measurable in points, let this be the high score that I've been trying to beat for all these years.